Last night I realized that AA IS my life. Not that I go to very many meetings, but that the spiritual gifts and true sobriety are the entirety of my life. Sobriety is so so much more than just not drinking. The value I see today in the fellowship, walking shoulder to shoulder, is amazing. Even though I don't get involved in social activities, I truly love the people at the meetings. I don't need to find some other better people. Sober alcoholics are the people I like the best.

My life was miserable as a drunk. To think of being a functional drunk or a binge drunk for my adult life really brings home the gratitude. I'm not really wise like the old timers were when I got here, but I am here.

So many people decide they don't need the fellowship. The ego is ALWAYS involved in this decision. I myself made the decision, but also came back. Today I 100% believe that without the fellowship, I would have decided to try the experiment of the first drink. And thus would have begun the round of binge drinking and misery which is soooo hard to stop.

I checked early this morning and one of you had already wished me a happy birthday. That was special.

Congratulations Spirit Flower. I absolutely count on your humble honesty about the workings of your own mind to clear the fog in mine. You're an important part of my program.

I have been known to joke that I don't know the last name of many of my best friends. The support and connectedness I get from regularly participating are a big part of my practice of the principles on a daily basis. Frankly, I can't imagine anything but my ego that would urge me to declare that I don't need meetings or the other structure that organized AA provides me.

Keep coming back. I know I'll be here.

"If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.", Mother Teresa

Happy 31st Anniversary, Spirit Flower!!! Hmmm...I might have tried to drink again after I retired if I hadn't found AA online. In any case, recovery is always better if it includes the fellowship!!! Thank you for being a positive presence here.

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thank you for sharing what you shared, Spirit Flower! Some people go out of their way to play down the importance of meetings but that's where you get the fellowship. If the meetings should be so low on our priorities list, why do we even have them? Before I became my mother's primary caretaker, I went to at least 4 meetings a week because I couldn't think of a better place to start my day - my home group meets at 10:00 a.m.